


Give and Take

by hawkeward



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Gen, Manipulation, Memory Alteration, Spirits Do Not Understand Mortals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeward/pseuds/hawkeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Perhaps together, you can do what they cannot do alone. If you gave instead of taking, I would consider you no demon.”</p>
<p>Justice messes with Anders’ head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give and Take

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Justice Jam" music-based challenge on the [submittojustice](http://submittojustice.livejournal.com/) LiveJournal community. Based on the song "Zeal" by Plaid.

Sheathed in flesh, his edge is dulled. That much he already knew, but now all the insistent, immediate needs of life press on him constantly in ways he could never have imagined. The thud of a heartbeat and the rush of air in and out of lungs leave him restless; the myriad desires and indignities drive him to distraction. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

Kristoff was stacks of brittle paper he could rifle through at his whim, organized memories and the unchanging essence of a dead man laid bare for study. A living being, he finds, has thoughts that fly like sparks, dancing in and out of existence almost too fast for him to see. They spin into ephemeral thread, brightening and lengthening to join an ever-shifting chaotic web of thought and memory and character that stretches wider than he can reach.

He is disappointed to find how many of those threads are utterly meaningless. He knew this mage was fickle, weak and apathetic, a feckless pleasure-seeker fleeing responsibility. Now he drowns in it. Stray thoughts sieve through the mind they share—supper, pretty girls, half-remembered magical formulae. It is maddening. He thought he had learned everything there was to know about the changeability of mortals, but this! Emotions he cannot even name flicker past him with dizzying speed. There is no purpose, no focus in a man.

Anger, at least, he understands. He has encountered many rage demons. He has even felt something like it himself, on occasion: a clean, righteous burn that drives him on. There is anger here in plenty, lurking silently beneath the veneer of self-centered survival. Does the mage realize how deep it runs, or how strong? In the end, it does not matter; he can still use it.

He sorts deftly through the threads of memory and thought, sharpening the ones that feed the well of helpless rage. They are numerous—again and again he finds the faceless armor, the insignia of the blazing sword. He smooths over them lovingly, strengthening and brightening until they burn thick and white-hot and all other things dim beside them. They thrum with power under his touch, and he feels the mage shudder as they flare.

Guilt, too, he knows and can use. He picks delicately through selfish, stolen moments of peace and finds black seeds of it already buried deep. It is a small matter to coax them to life so they worm through the bright strands, gnawing and knotting in their wake. It is not right—not just—for one man to be happy while so many others suffer. This is the truth from which he is made. The weakened threads fray and snap around him, ragged ends drifting like cobwebs until they fade into insignificance.

The web no longer sprawls out of reach; it spirals inexorably into his grasp, as neat a leash as ever held a man, barbed with rage and baited with memory. The messy distractions of life both old and new continue to pull at it relentlessly, always seeking to tangle and choke his work, but now he is more than capable of keeping them at bay. Under his guidance, the sloshing tide of irrelevant thoughts is stemmed as the mage bends to their task, finally made ready to answer a higher call.

He still catches the occasional glimpse of himself as he tends the mage’s scattered memories—the Blackmarsh, Amaranthine, Vigil’s Keep. Is he... different, now? He studies the dim scraps carefully, trying to detect even the slightest variation between the spirit decked in Kristoff’s corpse and the one that now wears living flesh. A twist of something like doubt shivers through the dark corners of the mind he has so carefully molded in his image, so deep he cannot control it. Would such a thing have troubled him before? He no longer remembers.

Sometimes, when the heart is pounding ecstatically against the chest and the breath is rasping in the throat and every nerve is singing with the thrill of life, he feels as if flesh is no longer a cage. When Templar blood flows slick over his hands, warm and sweet with lyrium, he almost starts to believe that this is what he has wanted all along.


End file.
